The JINX Series 2009

Match 4.

Today saw us back at Rolf's for the penultimate round of this years Jinx Series. Leading up to the match, the question that had been nagging away at the back of my mind was would the unsettled weather of the previous week have an adverse effect on the fishing today .
Looking out of the window a dull grey day greeted me and it looked like we would be in for more rain at some point, and loading up the car there was a muggy feeling to the air. So having made sure that the waterproofs were in the car today I set off via Battersea for my usual stop at The Jimmy Griddle where one of their 'Full English Breakfasts' at least made for a good start to the day . The drive down was smooth enough, though I did drive through a few rain squalls and after a final stop for a coffee at the services, I pulled into Rolf's car park just after 10·30am.

I was the first to arrive. Now normally the first thing to do on arrival is to dip your nets prior to the match ahead, However John now supplies the fisheries own keepnets and landing nets for visiting anglers to use, so that's one ritual less on a Rolf's match day . Anyway John and Pauline were just starting to refill the dip tanks on the weigh stations so I set off with them round the lake and gave them a hand with that and by the time we'd worked our way back round to the car park the others were starting to arrive .

Soon the banter was in full flow. How would it fish? Clive spent a lot of the time with his fingers in his ears and changing the subject as people tried to get him to name a peg . Tony ribbing me as to whether I would draw 13 again? Would The Minx return to form and add a few more to her list? Marcus (Budgie) was back guesting again having been hooked by The Rolf's Experience as were Webbo and Steve(Steak) and with the weather today was The Jinx starting to flex it's power once more? .

Well the draw was late today (much to Jon's relief as he had stated that he would swim the lake after the final match if all 5 of the series draws had gone ahead on time ) I hung back hoping that someone would get Peg 13 before me, and joy of joys Tony's ribbing bit him on the arse as Peg 13 stuck to his hand . Now Clive and I are partners for the "Pairs" event, and had been heavily tipped as favourites prior to the start of the series, however a couple of disasters in the first 2 matches had seen us languishing down in 10th place , the last match had seen us drag ourselves back to 3rd and we were hoping for a decent pair of draws today to help us improve our position further. Poor Clive however got Peg 23 again , and Jon had obviously drawn well as by the time I reached the draw bag he already had his kit on peg 7 !!!!! Into the bag and I was more than happy to see peg 8 sticking to my palm, a very decent peg that I've never been fortunate enough drawn before .

So with my kit round at my peg it was time to get set up. I tend to be pretty single minded with my approach at Rolf's, I find that if you set up to many options you just end up confusing yourself. Now you can fish long on peg 8 across to the far bank, but in all honesty my back isn't really up to fishing long for 5 hours and with the wind gusting and the promise of rain to come I discounted it. Instead I went for just 4 sections straight out in front on the deck, a comfortable distance that I could throw pellet to regardless of what the weather did , and a similar line to the bush on my left. Rigs would be just one for pellet and another for paste. The pellet rig was a was a 4X12 Malman Adam to 0·20 Power Match with a size 12 Guru QM hook while the paste rig was a Malman SC paste to 0·22 Power Match with a size 12 Drennan Carp Feeder hook. Bait for the day was 8mm hard pellet, paste and some corn, while feed was simply 6mm fishery pellet.
So a pretty simple set up which left me a bit of time before the all in, though Jon looked like he was determined to cover all the bases as he made the most of every minute prior to the off .

So 1·30pm and Malc called the All-In and I fed 2 good handfuls of pellet straight out and another to the left then flicked a banded 8mm pellet out in front, and after lifting and dropping the rig the float buried and a good few feet of yellow Vespe streamed out of the top kit.
Slow steady pressure soon saw one of Rolf's Commons resting in the landing net, a weigher that went 11¾lbs, a nice start .
More pellets and back out with the rig, a couple of lifts and it's déjà vu as once more the elastic streamed from the top kit and a couple of minutes later it's another Common in the landing net, another weigher, this time going 11½lbs . Back out again, more pellets over the top and within a minute I'm in again resulting in yet another Common, going 10¾lbs this time .

Now with a start like that you can't help feeling that it's almost to good to be true, and sure enough next put in sees me attached to a real creature that just steamed off to the far bank, however I managed to turn it then heard a crack, looking up I couldn't work out what had happened at first, but it was soon apparent that the elastic had gone at the stonfo. Obviously a little bit of wear that I hadn't noticed, but I couldn't help feeling annoyed with myself . Feeding more pellet I decided to re rig the top kit as I had all the necessary with me, but it cost me 15 minutes, though I kept feeding while I did it .

Jon was having a bit of grief having lost a couple of fish (probably foul hookers) and was having a bit of a struggle getting to grips with just how the fish wanted it. Meantime I was back in action, my next fish being a Mirror around the 8lb mark. The fishing for most however was proving to be challenging. The Minx had given her customary scream signifying that she was up and running on peg 19 and you just knew that it had caused a few buttocks to tighten wondering if they were going to fall victim to her today . Indeed as I looked up the car park bank from my vantage point sport seemed to be slow. Indeed Webbo took great delight in phoning me to let me know that not only had Steak smashed a couple of top 2's, but had nearly lost his 3rd & 4th sections in the lake as well .

A bit of a lull in proceedings for me, with a lot of finicky knocks resulted in me finally connecting with a fish which proved to be a Skimmer of around 1½lbs and a switch to corn only resulted in a small Roach . Jon however was attached to something that was obviously a lot more substantial. After a few anxious minutes he had it safely in the net, a lovely looking Mirror that rolled the scales round to 17lbs and a new PB for him .

With me being plagued by finicky bites I decided to try the paste rig as I'd read on Eddie Taylor-Green's Blog that Vespe sponsored angler Chris Telling had won the previous Wednesday open from peg 8 fishing paste, but I just couldn't make it work for me on the day as I suffered a frustrating spate of liners and foul hookers . Malc appeared having had a stroll round the lake and he seemed to think that it was between Simon E on peg 22 and me, with more than a few struggling at that point, indeed Malc hadn't had so much as a bite down on peg 40 . Nick on peg 36 had been fishing long to the aerator nearly all match with little to show for it, but had finally started to get a bit of action as reward for his efforts.

Dave the Fish was having a quieter time than he would have liked on peg 2, while rumour had it that Fred was  having a steady match on peg 4. Big Dave Moore had been strangely quiet on peg 6, and I did wonder if he'd fallen asleep after doing a nights work on the London Underground prior to the match until he appeared to ask me to witness a couple of weighers for him .

Back on the pellet rig and I started to connect with a few, a mix of Commons and Mirrors that all seemed to average around the 8lb mark. However I was getting quite a few foul hookers, so although it looked to some that I was absolutely bagging, the reality was that not all of them were ending up in the net. However sometimes you get something happen that gives you a hint that today might just be your day, and when I went to put a Mirror of around 8lb in the net and the top ring collapsed leading to me missing the net and the fish landed on the outside of the keepnet allowing me to scoop it back into the landing net, I couldn't help wondering if the fishing gods were smiling on me today .

With the rain finally arriving in proper fashion with around 2 hours to go, sport appeared to pick up for me (well at least I wasn't suffering from so many foul hookers ) though the frustrating bit was that I couldn't pick up a single fish from the left hand bush, forcing me to concentrate on the one line. Ryan over on peg 34 was fishing tight up to the buoy in his right hand margin but it didn't appear to be producing for him today and he'd been snagged up on at least one occasion that I'd seen .

With around an hour to go I heard Malc shout out, which meant he'd finally managed to catch  while just 45 minutes from the end a huge sigh of relief could be heard from Simon on peg 9 as he got his first fish of the day, thus avoiding the dreaded DNW though he was still looking odds on for a Minxing . I was still nicking the odd fish, while Jon had gone across at 14½mtrs and finally started to get a few, though he was having problems with sticking sections which made shipping back a bit of a nightmare for him and cost him a few fish .

With just a couple of minutes to go I was into a decent fish, but unfortunately made a schoolboy error . Knowing that there wasn't long to go I got greedy and tried to hurry it to the net so that I could get another put in before the all out, subsequently I shipped back to quickly and the feisty fish made a bee line for the platform and cracked me off round the legs of it, a silly mistake and I should have known better, and just to rub it in while I was cursing my stupidity Malc called the All-Out .

Packing away wet kit is never fun and Jon had to get straight off but had a real problem with a top kit firmly stuck to a No4, but luckily with Fred's help he was spared driving home with it stuck out of the window. I soon had my kit back to the car and after chatting to a few of the lads it was obvious that the lake had fished hard for the most part . Just how hard would be revealed by the Weigh-In.

So starting with peg 34 as usual Ryan weighed a hard earned 51½lbs to start things off, and that weight wasn't troubled till Fred on peg 4 stuck just over 65lbs on the scales edging Jon on peg 7 by 6ozs. With 4 weighers on the board and another 11 Carp in my nets I was sure I'd done the 'Ton' and so it proved when my weight was called at 131lbs 6ozs . Paul on peg 16 managed 80¼lbs which would prove to be good enough for 3rd on the day. Gemma on peg 19 recorded a hard earnt 33lbs, drawing more than a few groans as several people realised they'd suffered a Minxing  or were about to. Simon E had managed a fine 110lbs from unfancied peg 22 for 2nd on the day , while my partner Clive's 52½lbs gave him 2nd in his section . So a pleasing win for me on what had proved to be a hard day, with a Golden Nugget from the The Minx and one from Webbo by way of a bonus. Gemma had the biggest grin though with 13 victims added to The Minxed List, including Simon  and her Dad  . As for the Pairs, a couple of decent results today for myself and Clive has seen us move up to second place, but an even better pair of results from Fred and Simon E has seen them pull 2  points further in front, meaning that Clive and I will need to beat them by 13 points in the final match to win the Pairs competition, almost impossible but we'll give it a real good try .

Next weekend it's back to Rolf's again with 3 matches in 3 days, It's a hard life, but someone has to do it .

Marsh AC club match.

Today it's another Marsh AC club match and we're on Nick's Lake at Hartleylands Farm. There's a few guests joining us today as is usual and with the whole lake booked hopefully it will throw up a few decent weights . Loading up the car the weather looked set fair and it was a smooth run down to the Knox Bridge Café for breakfast where I'd arranged to meet up with Keith and his pal Mick who were travelling down from Milton Keynes. Stomachs filled it was a short run down to the fishery and we pulled into the car park around 8·20am .
Along with Keith and Mick there were 2 other guests fishing with us today. Clive, who's rapidly becoming a fixture and Dave Talbot (Faye's Dad) who'd been able to accept the invite to join us .

With 17 anglers and 37 pegs on the lake there would be plenty of space for everyone today, and Dave soon had the monies collected and the draw under way. Soon it was my turn and when peg 23 came to hand I was happy enough and pretty sure it would provide a decent days fishing . You can see where we all ended up on the pegging plan below .............

I soon had my kit in situ and found that I had Tony on peg 21 and Jim on peg 25 for company today, while I could see Clive opposite on peg 12. Now Nick's is one of those lakes that responds to a variety of methods, and with a bit of space the pole fished shallow is normally the way to go at this time of the year, but I really fancied fishing the waggler today, as I don't do it often enough and while it probably wouldn't win, I was sure it would provide me with a decent days fishing , the only fly in the ointment being the wind blowing from my left to right straight up into pegs 17 & 18. So the Shakespeare 11ft Micro was set up with a Shimano Stradic spooled up with 4lb Maxima, the business end was a Dave Brittain pellet waggler while the hook was a size 14 Drennan Match Carp with a hair rigged pellet band. With and hour and a quarter to set up I did get the feeder rod out as a back up, but didn't really plan on using it and I also set up one top kit with a margin rig as It's possible to nick a couple of lumps late on down the margins if needed. Bait was 6 & 8mm pellet with a bit of hemp and sweetcorn for the margins.

Jim and John came up for a chat while we were waiting for the off, Jim remarking that with so long to set up he could have had another half hour in bed . Tony had said that he was going to go for it shallow on the pole as he had plenty of water to go at, and it's a method he enjoys. Looking across I could Clive see sitting at his peg and looking quite serene, obviously happy that he'd got his drawing hand back under control and looking forward to the day ahead on a water that I just knew would be more to his liking after his recent grueller of a session at Drayton Reservoir ............

So at 10am Dave blew for the All-in and I fed a couple of pints of hemp and pellet into the margins before starting on the feeder to the corner of the island, to allow me to catapult some pellet out to the front of the island to prime it for the waggler. Lot's of little taps on the feeder resulted in a couple of small Carp in the 1st 10 minutes, but as I could already see signs of fish coming for the feed in front of the island I soon had the waggler out and was into a Carp 1st put in . The wind was making things tricky however, as well as some Ducks and Moorhens that were doing their best to mop up any loose pellets . I could hear by the splashing coming from my right that Tony was getting amongst a few, and from what I could see around the lake he appeared to be out catching everyone............

My problem was that I had to drop the float within 18 inches of the island to get a bite, any further away and I couldn't buy a bite, and feeding a bit further away had no effect. Then a couple of disasters befell me . firstly the float adaptor split, so I had to re-rig, however this time I went with a Drake 3AAA peacock waggler that I felt I could control better, then first cast out a Moorhen dashed out to the splash of the float landing and tangled with the rig. Thankfully I managed to retrieve the rig complete with Moorhen which I netted and the bird was released none the worse for it's experience, before I could once more get down to the task in hand.

Dave had come round for a stroll and confessed that he was experiencing his own "Mugger Moments©" as were a few of those pegged down to my left where it was much more sheltered, though I could see Simon down on peg 31 putting fish in the net on a regular basis, and Dave was soon followed by Colin, who reckoned that he'd only got 7 small carp to show for his first 2 hours of effort. Judy up on peg 16 appeared to be concentrating on a margin swim to put a few fish together ........

I managed to get back into some sort of rhythm and started to put a run of fish together, but a couple of times the wind got up making presentation awkward and on those occasions I took the opportunity to take a look down the margins and while this produced a couple of small Carp I soon got back out on the waggler when the wind eased . Just past halfway Tony strolled down as he took a break to have a bite to eat and was admitting to 60+ fish.

Round the other parts of the lake people were having their own private battles. Keith on peg 6 was trying to get to grips with a venue that was new to him, and with the wind blowing straight into him had come shorter allowing himself to feed comfortably and was starting to put a few fish together ...........

While his friend Mick was having quite an enjoyable day, having drawn peg 9 (one of the noted pegs) he was happily putting together a good net of fish on the pole ............

while Chris on peg 8 to his right looked to be doing OK from what I could see as he did battle with one of the lakes resident Carp.........

With time marching on, I kept plugging away on the waggler and apart from Tony who was catching really well, I felt that I was holding my own against everyone else from what I could see . Clive was fishing his right hand margin, and while he was putting fish in the net, he seemed to be suffering a few blank periods in between...........

Colin however was experiencing a really good end to the match and in the last 2 hours was absolutely flying, taking decent fish regularly from the margin over on peg 14 ............

Jim was having a bit of a struggle and confessed to a bit of frustration as he felt he wasn't getting the best from his swim as it seemed that wherever he looked others were doing better than him ......

with 20 minutes to go the wind got up again so I took a final look down the margin with the pole, but only managed 2 more fish, they were however better fish and probably added about 15lbs to my net before Dave blew the All-out at 4pm.

So with the kit packed up and back in the car it was time for the weigh-in. Terry kicked off from peg 1 with 44¼lbs and was immediately overtaken by Dave with 48lbs. Keith had finally sorted things out to record 76¼lbs , but his mate Mick was to take the bragging rights on the trip home to Milton Keynes with a fine 101lbs . Clive had 78lbs to show for his efforts while Colin had a final 2 hours "To die for" as he put it weighing 112¼lbs . Dave T declared he'd really enjoyed his day and the 60¼lbs he put on the scales . Tony's nets rather gave the game away as they were lifted out, and when his catch was totalled up 176¼lbs was always going to be enough for the win . My own fish came to 106lbs which would prove to be good enough for 4th on the day . While Simon was last to weigh and put a fine 129lbs on the scales for 2nd on the day .

So 5 Ton weights in a total of 1155½lbs weighed in resulting in an average of 68lbs per angler made for another good day out for the members of Marsh AC and their guests, and I think shows just what a good venue Hartleylands Farm is . Thanks to all that made it another enjoyable day out . The next Marsh club match is at Colemans Cottage next month, while my next outing is to Rolf's Lake for the 4th match in The Jinx Series next Saturday.

The JINX Series 2009

Match 3.

Well today is the day of the third match of the JINX Series at Rolf's Lake . It promises to be a little different today, as a good number of the lads were there last night to fish a JINX 2009 SPECIAL EVENING MATCH between the hours of 6·30pm till 11·30pm and were obviously stopping overnight. With a few of the series regulars not fishing that, but some guests taking their places it should be pretty full today.
So after being woken just after 7am by our new kitten who wanted feeding, I logged onto the Maggotdrowning forum and sure enough Slim had already put a post up about the evening match .....

"Just got off the phone from steve(sacker) wilson,seems rolf fished quite well last night. 3 x 200lb weights,and a fair few 100 lb + weights.Over 2000 lb of fish were caught and on average worked out about 120 lb per angler."

So things looked promising for today despite the forecast predicting clouds and rain, and with the car loaded up I was soon on my way via 'The Jimmy Griddle' café in Battersea, for my customary stop for a 'Full English' to set me up for the day . Suitably refreshed and with just 1 further stop for a coffee at the services, I pulled into an already packed car park just after 10·30am.

First things first, so I dipped my nets before catching up with the events of the past night. It seemed that Vince (my pound coin dispenser ) who has been trying to catch a Rolf's Ton for some time had achieved his aim in spades with a 200lb+ bag, Well Done mate .
However people were already ribbing him that I hadn't been there for him to take a £1 back from me, and they were already speculating that normal service would be resumed with me present today .
There was a pretty full house, as a couple of anglers that fished the evening match were guesting today, Vince and Budgie, while Dave had again travelled down from Leeds, this time with Bagger J in tow.

So draw time once more, and Clive had refused to mention a single peg number in case his hand played up again, but was rewarded with peg 6 this time . I just wanted to avoid Peg 13 and hung back, but it refused to come out and was still in the bag when I drew . Slowly I opened my hand to reveal peg 34.
Happy days , In fact Slim ended up with Peg 13 so it would be interesting to see how he fared on it.

With just a short walk from the car park to peg 34 there was no rush to set up, and I helped Dave Collier with his box to his peg (30) as he'd left it on 34 overnight, having fished it during the evening match.
With nobody on peg 35, Vince of course just had to draw peg 36 (you couldn't make it up ) so we were bound to have some fun during the match one way or another .
Neo was down on 38 with Webbo on 40 and Budgie on 2 while Jon had peg 4 as his home for the match. Opposite me was Clive on peg 6 with Tony(spamwham) on peg 7 with Steve on peg 8 for company, and I had a feeling that we would spend plenty of the match watching that trio bagging up off those flyers .

With the match not starting till 1·30pm we had plenty of time to set up and I decided to tie some new rigs up. The 1st was a 4X12 Malman Adam to 0·20 with a size 12 Guru QM hook to fish 8mm banded pellet on the deck at 9-10mtrs straight out, no further as the wind was gusting from right to left across the peg, while the 2nd and 3rd were 0·3g Malman MTD1's again on 0·20 with size 12 Guru QM hooks to fish the margins on both sides and double up as up in the water rigs. Bait was 8 & 6mm pellets + some sweetcorn and some paste if needed, while feed was just 6mm fishery pellets .

Well 1·30pm finally rolled around and Malc called the All-In. I shipped out 2 large pots of pellet onto the 9mtr line and fed more by hand down both margins as well as a spot about 3mtrs out to my left where John Bennett had told me he'd had a lot of fish from in the past . Vince appeared to be starting on paste at around 5mtrs (which is what he caught on during the evening match ) and it looked like Clive was shipping out a paste rig over on peg 6 as well........

I could see a few bubbles starting to appear on the 9mtr line but missed the first couple of lightning fast bites, before I briefly connected with a fish that was obviously foul hooked before the rig came flying back . Tony and Steve were both off the mark already though, in fact Tony seemed to have a bite every time he lowered his rig in !!!!!

I finally connected with one of Rolf's super fit Commons and after a couple of minutes had it safely in the net.....

Now at this point I must apologise to Malc , as I decided to weigh the fish to get a feel for just how they were weighing, the fish turned out to be just 8½lbs so rather than record it I decided to put it straight into my keepnet, however Vince remarked to me that there was no weight sheet at the weigh station, so I phoned him to let him know, however when Malc arrived the weigh sheet was under the crate (in case of rain) meaning a wasted trip round the lake for Malc , schoolboy error on my part Sorry Malc .

Back to the fishing, and I noticed that Webbo had started to sneak the odd one out down on peg 40 and appeared to be in with a good chance of taking yet another Golden Nugget off me ............

Budgie over on peg 2 had the look of a man who was a bit shocked , this being his 1st visit to Rolf's and who was beginning to realise that he was a little under-gunned in the tackle department, and that people hadn't exaggerated just what was needed to tackle the fish at Rolf's ...........

Meanwhile Clive was having a bit of a struggle on peg 6 and was just having to be patient while he waited for the fish to hopefully turn up, He wasn't helped though by hearing the constant splashing that was coming from pegs 7 & 8 as Tony and Steve continued to catch regularly ..............

My next fish was a lovely Common of around 12½lbs that was to prove to be my biggest of the day..........

 and Vince kindly did the honours with the camera (Webbo even phoned to say I was being cruel to Vince, not only getting him to check the weight, but having him take a picture as well )............

I had a look at JB's spot and while it did produce one Carp for me that was all, and with nothing from either margin it was back to 9mtrs for me  as it seemed to at least produce regular bites if not lots of them...............

Jon was tucked away over on peg 4, and while not taking it apart he was quietly slipping the odd fish into the net with a minimum of fuss .

Webbo appeared to be having a bit of an eventful match however, earlier he'd smashed a top kit trying to net an angry foul hooker , but it went from bad to worse when he placed a top kit on his box and sat on it to hold it in place whilst playing a fish so that he could feed his swim and the fish pulled it in . True to form, Malc appeared to try and rescue it, but it had vanished from sight before he had a chance to leap in .........

Vince remarked that it was surprising that more gear wasn't lost at Rolf's, given the way that some of the fish fight, indeed he had a struggle on his hands of his own as a particularly fit Common led him a merry dance, before he got the upper hand, and I returned the favour with the camera ..........

Meanwhile Clive had started to experience an upturn in sport after 3 hours of struggling and seemed to be having regular tug of war matches with a number of lumps, the vast majority of which appeared to be weighers..........

I was just ticking along at around 3 fish an hour , and it didn't seem to matter what I tried I couldn't up the rate, however it was enough to keep me ahead of Vince, despite him having a bit more on the board in terms of weighers than me.

Tony and Steve continued to catch, though it was noticeable that Tony was making very few trips up to the scales..........

Clive however was flying by now, and it seemed that every time I looked over in his direction he was attached to another beast that was trying it's best to drag him off his platform , in fact he was doing battle as Malc called the All-Out at 6·30pm........

Then as if on cue it started to rain, just so we could get a soaking as we packed up and started the weigh-in. I was 1st to weigh and I was pleasantly surprised to find that I'd managed a 'Ton' with a weight of 101¼lbs . Vince couldn't match that with a weight of 61lbs so handed over yet another Golden Nugget to yours truly . Dave despite his problems however managed to put 106¾lbs on the scales meaning that he at least recouped a Golden Nugget from me to offset the loss of top kits. The next serious contender was Clive and he put a highly impressive 192¼lbs on the scales and place himself firmly in the lead . Tony put 133lbs on the scales, he probably caught the most fish on the day, but suffered from them being mostly around the 5lb mark . In fact Steve almost edged out Tony with 127lbs (less fish but more weighers. Young Mitch did the business with 116lbs 2ozs from peg 9 and Simon E put a fine 163¼lbs on the scales from peg 11, while Slim had suffered a bit of a 'Mugger Moment©' on my nemesis peg (13) with just 29½lbs . Malc had 152½lbs and Al just missed out on a ton from peg 18 with 94lbs . Paul weighed a creditable 110¼lbs from peg 19 while poor Gem only manage a meagre 1¼lb of silvers from peg 21 meaning everyone had avoided a Minxing today . Simon extracted a measure of revenge on Gem with 94½lbs from peg 23 . The winner on the day however was young Ryan with an excellent bag from peg 26 that weighed 196¾lbs, Well Done Ryan . Fred was the last to break the Ton today with with 142½lbs from peg 28.

So there you have it, there were an awful lot of very tired anglers at the end of it, especially those that had fished the evening match as well, but they all agreed that it had been worth it.

Next up for me should be a Marsh AC match on Nick's Lake at Hartleylands Farm in a couple of weeks time.

Well it's off down to a Private Lake in East Sussex for an impromptu session at Bill Gibbins invitation as he's booked the Lake for today and invited a few of us down to join him for a bit of a Knock Up .
It looked like being a nice day as I loaded the car up and set off, though some idiot trying to drive through some roadworks to escape the attention of the local constabulary nearly stymied things at the off . However it didn't really delay me and I arrived at about 8·45am .

Bill was off round the lake pegging out so I dipped my nets and chatted with Roger, John, Ray, Al, Terry and Clive and as Bill returned Dave rolled up to complete the numbers for the day. Al collected the cash as Bill organised an impromptu draw. Peg 2 was my reward, while Al got peg 1 and Dave peg 3 (both rated pegs ). Roger had peg 4 with a comfy chuck to the small island, while John was just round the corner out of my site on peg 6. Bill had the back of the large island all to himself on peg 7. Terry had peg 8, while Ray and Clive had pegs 10 & 11 to round things off .

Not having fished the lake much I'd asked a bit of advise and the general consensus was a line around 10mtrs out in front and another down the left hand margin where the outflow to the lake is as it normally holds a few. Sitting there in the morning warmth with a mix of sun, clouds and a bit of breeze it didn't look bad at all .

Setting up was nice and simple as I was just after a nice relaxed days fishing so I wasn't about to over complicate things with numerous rigs and options. Just 2 4X12 Malman Adam's to 0·18 with size 16 Drennan Carp Match hooks to fish 8mm banded pellet on the deck at 10mtrs straight out and a MW Trev with similar line and hook for up in the water that could double up down the inside. Bait was 8mm pellet with 6mm for feed.

10·00am and the All -In was called and I dumped a large pot of pellets out at 10mtrs and fed down the left margin by hand. Straight away I could see Roger was into what appeared to be a decent fish on the feeder, and indeed he was soon into a steady run of them .

I could hear a fair bit of splashing coming from Al's peg, but it turned out that apart from one early fish he was having a bit of a mare, with fish slipping the hook and trashing a couple of rigs .

I'd managed a couple of Carp of about 3lbs each by the hour mark........

......... but was being pestered by small roach snatching at the pellet, as a brief change down to a 6mm on the hook confirmed. From what I could see Terry was getting amongst a few, but it transpired that he was losing just as many as he was managing to get into the net .

Ray and Clive seemed to be ticking over nicely, with Clive seemingly having the better of it from his peg and rumour had it that he's had an absolutely cracking Tench .

Dave was fishing down into the corner on peg 3 and had around 9 fish when he went for a stroll at about 12·30, which was a couple more than I had. Bill came wandering round on the way to fetch his sunglasses and reckoned that John had 7 fish and was admitting to having had around 20 fish himself (though he reckoned they were on the small side )

By 1·30 I decided to stretch my own legs so Having topped up both pegs with a decent quantity of feed, strolled round with my camera. Dave had gone back to fishing short (4 sections) down the side as it was more comfortable for him and it was still producing for him . Roger was still catching on the feeder, even if he was having a bit of a fight to get them in the landing net .

Battling through the undergrowth I found Bill in the act of unhooking yet another Carp, and although he tried to play it down I'm sure I detected a quiet hint of confidence .

Terry, while having caught a few, had it seemed lost just as many again including a proper lump that gave him no chance .
Ray was suffering the attention of to many Roach, hindering his attempts to build a weight, but Clive was looking happier than I've seen him look for a few weeks as he was starting to put together a decent bag as his margin swim got stronger .

Al had finally come to terms with his swim as well, and after his initial troubles early on was starting to put some decent fish in his nets .

Back to my peg and I continued to pick up fish to the end of the session, but try as I may finding one over 3lbs seemed beyond me  

while Dave was catching at pretty much the same rate as I was, his fish were of a noticeably better stamp than mine.

The All-Out was called at 4pm and I knew that it wasn't going to be a place for me today . Chatting to the owner as I packed up he reckoned that with 24 fish I should have a comfortable ton, but I knew that my fish were small, and told him I would be lucky to have 75lbs. Anyway we would soon see as the scales were starting at Al's peg. It was immediately obvious that Al had caught a much better stamp of fish as he recorded 140¼lbs to set the standard . My fish went 74lbs 6ozs, so I wasn't far out . Dave had a little more than he thought with 103¼lbs, while Roger suffered with to many small fish recording 122½lbs. John's fish only came to 61lbs but none the less represented his best ever weight from the lake . Bill was next up and halfway through things were looking close, but he came up just short with 136lbs meaning the loss of a Golden Nugget to Al . Terry was left a bit frustrated with his 85lbs, which left him ruing the loss of so many fish during the course of the day. Ray had the lowest weight on the day with 60½lbs, but it was Clive who finally took the honours on the day, and a Golden Nugget off Bill , with a fine 149lbs which included a cracking Tench, which if it hadn't recently spawned would have gone way better than the 7lbs 2ozs that it actually weighed.

So that was it for the day, 9 anglers putting over 900lbs of fish on the scales, in lovely surroundings, with good weather and even better company. It doesn't get much better than that .

Marsh AC club match.

Todays venue for the Marsh AC club match is Rockells Farm. It's the venue where I set a new club match record last year of 293½lbs and the club recorded their all time best aggregate weight of 1991lbs weighed in between 18 anglers .
As usual I got round to Dave's at 6·45am to follow him and Colin down to the venue, It's not the easiest of venues to find without a Sat Nav, being somewhat off the beaten track, but we made good time despite quite a bit of fog on the trip up and pulled into the car park just after 8am.
There were 19 booked in for todays match, 15 club members and 4 guests, Clive and Al who are in danger of becoming permanent fixtures and Keith Ashby and Vic Nugent (both GOT Baits sponsored anglers) who enjoy the occasional trip out with the club due to the relaxed atmosphere and the banter and laughs that are had during the day .

With no permanent numbers allocated to the pegs at Rockells, Keith and I set off into the lifting fog to peg out while Dave sorted the monies out. Every peg appeared to have fish moving in front of it and in the margins promising a good days sport ahead. Pegs 1-3 went into the very end, and could all be regarded as flyers, while pegs 4-11 went in down the right hand side and 12-19 up the left (The high numbers being where you wanted to be ). With draw time approaching, 3 members hadn't arrived (Martin, Zack & Graham) but the draw went ahead anyway.

Keith & Vic drew pegs 1 & 2, and with them both being very positive anglers would take all the stopping on those pegs . My home for the day would be peg 17 , with Al for company on peg 18. At the end of the draw there were 3 pegs left which I drew for the missing anglers peg 3 for Martin and peg 19 for Graham (Both flyers ) and peg 14 for Zack.

Settling into peg 17 I have to say that I was happy with my draw . I'm pretty single minded in how I approach Rockells, always fishing paste as close in as I can and peg 17 looked tailor made for it, with nettles and reeds overhanging the left hand margin and boards in the right hand margin .........

The rigs were simplicity itself, 3 top 2's holding rigs that were made up of 4X12 Middy Paste Floats that are a really strong line through design made up on ·20 Ultima Power Match finished off with a Drennan size 12 Carp Method hook to fish paste in both margins where I had around 2 feet of water on both sides. I had 6 pints of it made up, which was GOT Baits Atomic with some GOT Baits Pineapple Atomic Cloud added. Feed would be a mix of soaked 4 and 6 mm pellet. I had 2 extra sections of pole set up, but hopefully wouldn't be using them unless I hooked a real beast as I really wanted to be able to fish just the top 2's for speed and comfort.

Just along on peg 18 Al's swim looked well capable of pushing me all the way, especially as Al has been putting some good results together recently ...............

Martin, Zack and Graham had arrived meanwhile, and I fancied that Martin might be in with a chance on peg 3, as although he would only class himself as a pleasure angler, he'd had a good result here last year weighing in a total of 232¾lbs, so the venue obviously suits his approach .
Looking across I could see Keith, apparently lost in his thoughts, sitting on his flyer, so no pressure there then ..........

The fog had burnt off by now, but there was still a fair bit of cloud, so although it was warming up hopefully it wouldn't turn into the total scorcher that had been predicted . With the venues potential to produce big weights todays match was being split into two 3 hour sessions with a 1 hour break mid way through for a mid-match weigh-in taken at the fishery owners insistence, so with everyone set the All-In was called at 10am for the morning session .

A handfull of pellet into both margins, and with fish already showing on my left side that's where the 1st bit of paste was lowered into. A couple of knocks and the float slid away and the first Carp of the day, a small Mirror of around 12ozs was soon safely in the net, number 1 on the clicker . To be honest it was pretty much steady away for me from then on. Al however seemed to be having a few problems , it looked as if he was fishing pellet that was being intercepted by Roach and the smaller Carp, on top of which he seemed to be bumping a few better fish. I was getting a few to many small Carp for my liking, but I found last year that you just had to wade through them and keep the bait going in to draw the better fish, and I started to put a few better 2-3lb fish together . They were all coming from the left hand margin though as every time I looked down the right I was waiting to long for a bite before landing yet another 8oz Carp.

2 hours in with 44 fish on the clicker another look down the right hand margin resulted in an instant bite and a much better fish powered off and after an anxious couple of minutes a nice Leather Carp of around 12lbs was safe in the net . With a few tail patterns now showing by the boards I concentrated on that line for the last hour. With 5 minutes to go I fed 4 pints of pellet into the right hand margin and another couple down the left in an attempt to hold the fish during the hours break for the weigh-in, while a final put in produced a 5lb Common Carp as the All-Out was called at 1pm.

The weigh-in started from my side and my weight of 120lbs made up of 62 fish was comfortably leading till it came to the 1st 3 pegs. Keith on peg 1 put 148lbs on the scales (and he reckoned he was getting roached out, lying ****** ) while Vic on peg 2 ran him close with 133¼lbs, however it was Martin who put us all in our place when he put a staggering 180¾lbs on the scales for the half way lead . So with over 1100lbs of fish weighed it looked like all the club records set last year would be going, as it normally fishes better in the afternoon. In fact it had taken the whole hour to weigh-in meant that we delayed the start of the afternoon session to allow everyone to get back to their pegs.
As I strolled back I noticed that Clive was looking a bit numb as he'd struggled on peg 10 for a mere 22lbs and already needed snookers .............

............. it looks like his drawing hand has decided to get its own back on him big time, for all the punishment he's given it for mis-behaving recently .

Returning to my peg I could see that despite the disturbance of the weigh-in the fish had settled on the pellets by the boards as evidenced by the tail patterns I could see . So 2·15pm and the All-In was called for the afternoon session. 1st put in and away goes the float attached to a 3lb Common and that's the way it continued . Al seeing how successful paste had been for me gave it a go, and while it was an improvement he was having yet another nightmare as he suffered from hook pulls and foul hookers .

Elsewhere round the lake sport wasn't quite so fast and furious I'm afraid, in fact rumour had it that Clive had put a pair of ear plugs in, so that he didn't have to keep hearing the splashing of fish coming to others nets ........

 I suffered with a few foul hookers as well during the afternoon session, despite cutting down on the feed, there were just so many fish down by the boards, even hooked fish charging through them didn't spook them. I basically fished the right hand margin for the whole 3 hours as the bites kept coming and they were from a better stamp of fish than those from the left hand margin.

In fact, by the time the All-Out was called at 5·15pm I was quite relieved as my right shoulder was starting to ache, and a quick glance showed me that I had another 61 fish on the clicker .

I was soon packed away and dropped my kit back to the car, before making my way round to the weigh-in which was starting with Keith as the scales had been left there at the end of the morning session.
Well, What can I say , Keith put an amazing 234lbs on the scales for a total of 382lbs , Vic added 173¼lbs for a combined weight of 306½lbs , while Martin weighed 202½lbs to edge out Keith by 1¼lbs with a total weight of 383¼lbs . So that was over 1000lbs of fish weighed in from the first 3 pegs !!!
Dave had had a decent afternoon on peg 6 putting 167½lbs on the scales for a total of 254¼lbs . Tony on peg 8 recorded a total of 142½lbs and most had improved on their morning totals by the time we got round to Colin on peg 15 who added a net of 127½lbs for a total of 211lbs while Terry on peg 16 recorded a total of 140¾lbs .
When it came to my peg the scales recorded a weight of 210lbs giving me a total of 330lbs and 3rd place on the day . Alan put a hard earned 101½lbs on the scales for a total of 171¾lbs while Graham rounded off things with a total weight of 114lbs for the 2 sessions .

So there you have it, Martin is now the proud holder of the club match record at 383lbs 4ozs . The top 10 anglers recorded 4 'Triple Tons', 2 'Double Tons' and 4 'Tons' between them . A club record total of 2911lbs 14ozs was weighed in between 19 anglers, an average of over 153lbs per angler . I broke my 3 hour PB match weight as well as my PB overall match weight as did quite a few others. Hopefully we'll get a chance to try and better that next year, or is that being greedy?

 

Well today is the day of the Maggotdrowning.com Individual Championship, and this year's venue is the Match Lake at Larford Lakes. It meant an early start for me as it's about 150 miles for me to drive. So with the car loaded up by 5am I was off, and a nice smooth trip with just a stop for coffee on the way found me pulling into the fishery car park just after 8am . It's a small world, as I parked next to Andy(andy222)Feltham an MD's member who hadn't posted for a while, and was there to fish a club match on the Specimen Lake.

Soon after people started to arrive in force, Vince who had organised today's match was soon joined by Clive and after dipping our nets we decided to get in quick for breakfast. A Full English for £5 was soon dispatched and fishery pellets purchased. I have to say that I find it strange that you can only feed a maximum of 4 bags of fishery pellets(2 pints of skrettings in a bag costing £2·50p), but you can feed unlimited amounts of meat or corn, which can't be good for water quality Waiting for the draw it was good to catch up with faces, both old and new , The customary side bet of a Golden Nugget was struck with Vince and Gemma(The Minx), while John's good lady Lynn parted us from our cash in exchange for raffle tickets, the proceeds of which will be going to The British Heart Foundation, and by the time that Vince called the draw at 9am, 38 of us were ready to go, meaning that we could leave out the even pegs giving everyone a bit of space . Into the hat and I'm rewarded with peg 37, while Vince asks me to draw for him and receives peg 51 as a present from me .

At least peg 37 being on the clubhouse bank means I can drive up and almost park behind it. It doesn't look to bad to be honest with a chuck to the island on the feeder and a nice bed of lilies in front of the bush to my left and should be good for a few.

Looking around I've got my fellow Marsh AC member,Tony(spamwham)Roberts to my left, so there should be a good bit of banter during the day ..........

To my right I've got Andrew(Marginman)Willet and next up fellow blogger and Jinx Series partner Clive, who appears to be knocking up some groundbait, though he might have had the prayer mat out and be offering up a plea to the fishing gods ...........

Looking across I can see Vince over on peg 51, so at least I'll be able to keep tabs on the likely destination of the Golden Nugget .

The set up today is 2 4X12 Malman Adam's to 0·16 with a size 18 Drennan Carp Match hooks to fish 6mm banded pellet and meat on the deck at 7mtrs straight out and on the edge of the lilies to my left where there's about 3feet of water and a Malman MTD2 dibber, again on 0·16 with a 18 Drennan Carp Match hook for up in the water. I also set up a Malman SC paste to 0·22 Power Match with a size 12 Drennan Carp Feeder hook for paste, just in case any lumps put in an appearance and the feeder rod.
Bait for the day was a mix of pellets, meat and paste, with feed taken care of by dampened 4mm fishery pellets.

So 11am and Vince calls the All-In. A handfull of pellet straight out to 7mtrs and another to the edge of the lilies and before I can ship out a banded pellet to 7mtrs a shout rings out signifying The Minx has her 1st fish in the net, sending a shudder down the spines of more than a few blokes .
Out to 7mtrs and after lifting and dropping the rig a couple of times the black hydro rips out of the top kit and soon a plump F1 of around 1½lbs is safely in the net ...........

This was swiftly followed by a small stockie of around 8ozs and than a bit of frustration started to set in , I had a spate of very finicky bites, but I managed to hit them, only to have them shed the hook as they came to the net for no apparent reason, the hook certainly hadn't blunted. Indeed I wasn't the only one to suffer like this, as I found out talking to others after the match. I was still managing to put a few in the net, though there were a few to many small stockies rather than the better stamp of F1's..........

To clear my head I took a quick stroll along with the camera to see how others were fairing. Dai was getting a few, but it was proving to be a bit of a struggle ...............

Dirk seemed to be happy enough with his lot, and while not pulling up any trees appeared to be catching with a degree of regularity .............

While tucked away on the other side of the lake I could see Malc(The Jinx) on peg 55, and judging by the way he was concentrating, he was obviously catching ............

Tony was looking as if he was in for a good day with a nice lily pad at a comfy 8mtrs he was catching a decent stamp of fish fishing shallow , though he had been seen off a couple of times by lumps that had found the sanctuary of the pads ...........

Clive meanwhile was having a bit of a mare, he was another suffering from lost fish , though he did manage to successfully land one as I looked on ............

Back at my peg I continued to put a few in the net, but yet again they were mostly small skimmers and stockies though as Clive strolled past I was into something a little better .........

Which proved to be one of the better F1's that gave a pretty good account of itself, I did ask Clive to stay for a while as he seemed to bring me a bit of luck, but for some reason he didn't think much of my offer .........

As the match wore on Vince had managed to bag a couple of what seemed to be reasonable fish on the feeder, but still needed to find something to up his catch rate and avoid the loss of yet another Golden Nugget ............

Weather wise we seemed to have just about everything during the course of the match and with half an hour to go it started to rain , and while my bites had become few and far between, Tony was still catching steadily and continued to put fish regularly in the net right up to the All-out being called at 4pm.

As we packed away at least the rain eased off and chatting to Tony I felt he must be in with a chance of at least a section as I thought he had something approaching the 'Ton'. The scales soon arrived and Tony's fish weighed in at an ounce shy of 97lbs to place him into the lead , while my net went 50lbs 5ozs. Clive had indeed suffered with a mere 19lbs 3ozs to show for his 5 hours . Poor Vince having slipped on the wet bank and pulled his thigh as he was packing his kit away suffered the loss of yet another Golden Nugget with just 17lbs 11ozs . I followed the scales round as far as Malc's peg where he put an excellent 89¾lbs on the scales before I returned to make my way back to the club house.

Back at the club house I was pleased to find I'd avoided a Minxing as Gem had struggled today so I managed to retrieve the Golden Nugget she'd taken from me on the previous Saturday at Rolf's . A buffet was laid on for us, with plenty to go round for all, despite Steve(Steak) doing his best to decimate it single handedly . Vince soon had the results sorted and the presentation underway.......

The section winners on the day being.........

Alan(Genus9)West
Lee(Hicko1)Hicking
Malc(The Jinx)Doyle
Wayne(Baggingman)Panting

The main honours going to ..........
3rd place..........Tony(spamwham)Roberts.

2nd place..........Mark(Bungee)Collinson.

and the winner on the day and MD's Individual Champion 2009...............
Steve (Fordy1) Ford.

The day was rounded off with the Raffle

Which thanks to Lynn's efforts selling tickets
raised £200 for The British Heart Foundation .

A few Thank You's are in order at this point, Firstly to Vince for organising the match, and doing his usual Excellent Job . To Lynn for a great job flogging the raffle tickets . To Phil Briscoe and all his staff at Maver Larford for their efforts during the day . Finally to all those members of Maggotdrowning.com that supported and took part in the match, making it the success that it was, it couldn't be done without you. Looks like we'll have to do it all over again next year .

Faye's Match.

Organised by Maggotdrowning.com
With all proceeds going to support

Back in December last year a young lady contacted the Maggotdrowning.com website with the following appeal...................

Dear whoever is reading this letter.

My name is Faye and I’m 19. I have been seriously ill for 7 years and am bedridden, in a wheelchair and fed by a tube. My doctors have told me that I don’t have long left now and that this will more than likely be my last Christmas. I am trying to make it special for my family so we have great memories. If you would like to find out more about my illnesses you can look at this site http://www.lovequiltsuk.com/FayeT.html . I don’t have any money to buy any nice presents for them so I was wondering if you could help out at all. If there was anything you could send me to give to my Dad who loves fishing and fish, it would mean so much to me and I would never forget your kindness. I do understand completely if you are unable to help me though.

Thank you very much for taking the time to read this letter, I know you must be very busy.

Faye.

Needless to say the members of the forum rallied round, and you can read about the results of their efforts HERE.

Anyway Faye remarked that she would love to meet up with as many of us as possible, so Bill arranged this light hearted match down at Monks, where Faye could come down and meet us, and as a bonus we could raise a few bob for an organisation that is close to Faye's heart Post Pals . Which is why we are down at Monk's today.

Well Dave(Webbo)Webster had stopped overnight at my place, having travelled down from Leeds the day before to fish this match, so there were 2 loads of kit to load up as we set off around 7am in bright sunshine, and good trip down saw us pulling into the car park at Monks at around 8am . Most of the usual suspects were in attendance along with a few new faces who had travelled from further afield to support the day and the reason behind it. Various combinations of rolls and sandwiches were soon consumed by the assembled company and around 8·30 Bill got the draw underway aided and abetted by Matt .

Vince walked past having drawn peg 54, so of course being a polite sort of chap I was duty bound to draw peg 55 and did . It would give the day a little extra edge as Vince had previously suggested that the loser of todays Golden Nugget would add an extra £5 to the charity pot and he was feeling confident having done a bit of "homework" on the venue and sorted his tactics ahead of time .

Thankfully "The Management" allowed us to park up by the lake today, so our kit was quickly in place and setting up commenced. Peg 55 is a corner peg, but not one that I was particularly chuffed to have drawn, as it never seems to produce like the others . Setting up was pretty easy. I'd earmarked 2 pole lines, the 1st at around 7mtrs and the other down the left hand margin. The rigs were actually the 2 that I'd used previously at Mansfield's, a 4X16 Preston Bazzerla PB19 on 0·16 to 0·14 bottom with size 16 Drennan Match Carp hook, and a smaller 4X12 Preston Bazzerla PB19 on 0·16 to 0·14 bottom with size 16 Drennan Match Carp hook. I also set up a 3AAA waggler on my Shakespeare 11ft Micro. Bait was red maggot, pellets and meat with pellet for feed.

Tony(spamwham) had remarked on my arrival, that he couldn't believe that the lake was flat calm without a ripple on it. He should have known better, because as 10am approached I could feel the wind starting to get up and a few grey clouds coming into view. Both aerators were running that I felt would generate a tow as well.......

As we waited a look down the bank to my right revealed Vince taking a photo of me (Surely this would be used in his Blog when he related how he'd battered me and finally taken the Nugget today )

So 10AM and with the breeze making things feel noticably cooler I slipped on my fleece just in time before Bill called the All-In. I potted a large cup of maggot and pellet onto the 7mtr line and a handfull of pellet into the margins..........

.........while Vince fed 5 balls of groundbait onto his pole line . I shipped out 2 maggots to 7mtrs, while Vince started off on the pellet waggler.

The float soon slid away and the 1st fish of my day, a small Ide was soon residing in the keepnet , a couple of small skimmers soon arrived to keep it company followed by a humble Gudgeon, but alas nothing substantial.

Looking across the lake Al appeared to be into a fish every time I looked.............

and Steve(badpegpicker)Oswick opposite on peg 66 seemed to be trying to find out just how far his elastic would stretch as he was into a regular run of fish ..........

NB: I must give a mention at this point to Jon(Mutley)Reed who while not fishing himself, spent the day strolling round taking photos and gave me permission to use as many as I liked for this report. Nice one Jon .

In general though, the fishing wasn't as good as everyone was hoping for , though most were putting one or two in their nets. Although I couldn't see from my peg, rumour had it that the far side of the causeway was proving just as hard. MD's answer to Jan Porter, Matt Love having a bit of a grueller on a water that he knows well .........

It can't have been that bad though as I could see that Mike(Omega Mike) Jameson was still at his peg, which meant that he must have been catching something .............

Tony(spamwham)Roberts was reported as having his own "Mugger Moment©" (payback for him taking the micky when I'd had a mare in a recent club match ) and was having a real struggle to find anything to add to his net.......

while Kevin(the catch)Loveland under the watchful eye of partner Jean was having a most enjoyable session, netting a regular succession of fish .........

For some of the watching audience though, the excitement of the day was proving to be just too much ................

Simon Elsey was having fun on his end peg next to Al, and while not able to keep up with his catch rate was still sticking a few decent fish in his net ............

Over on peg 46 Mick the Chippy was having a fine old day , having drawn between Trevor(MT Net)Little and Clive(Black Hydro)Pritchard, he was simply fishing the feeder and regularly popping fish in the net...........

In fact poor Clive was having one of those days when no matter where he looked, it seemed that everyone appeared to be catching more than him ........

with Steve(jessebobs)Burgess in his pink sweatshirt to his left enjoying his first visit to Monks and finding the fish in his swim in a particularly obliging mood............

Which is more than could be said for Vince and I . I had managed to add a solitary small Barbel from my margin swim...........

while Vince converted his waggler rod over to the feeder in an attempt to put something in the net ..........

Indeed with the feeder seeming to produce for so many, I took mine out of it's ready sleeve and rigged it with a maggot feeder as the pole was proving hard work for little reward, but I'd noticed that Colin on the peg to Vince's right was starting to get a few on his feeder rod.........

Further up my bank could be found Linda(mermaid)Billington, who despite claiming little or no knowledge of match fishing had turned up with a fully equipped Rive seatbox along with a sherpa in the form of hubby Chris to transport it all ..................

Jay over on the causeway appeared to be making hay with a good run of fish and appeared to be giving Al a run for his money...........

while Roger(upyah)Harris had started to get the odd one or two from peg 49............

The feeder seemed to have the desired effect for Vince as he put a run of 3 Carp together, threatening me with the loss of a Golden Nugget , but by dropping a maggot feeder up against the marginal rushes to my left, I managed to keep enough Barbel coming to stay ahead ...........

Around about 2pm Dave T arrived with wife Liz and the young lady the day was in aid of ..... Faye , and they spent the last hour of the match touring the lake with Bill meeting the anglers.

3pm and the All-Out was called, and with Faye taking the weights down and Bill and Kevin performing the weighing duties it was soon apparent that although the weights hadn't matched the expectations a few scalps had been taken on the day and Golden Nuggets exchanged, with Al taking the honours with a final weight of 94¾lbs for a fine win .

The final 2 to weigh were Vince and I, and for Vince it was an all too familiar story with his 13½lbs not matching my 25¼lbs meaning he waved farewell to yet another Golden Nugget .

Back to the car park for the results, and a number of the days winners generously returned their winnings to the pot , Then the fun really started with Bill removing his beard for the cause (and a few bob in the pot), only to reveal that he was actually "Razor"Ruddock in disguise !!!!!!!!!!!

More good news followed when it was announced that Monk Lakes owner Guy Harrison was returning £5 from every £8 peg fee to add to the pot, and that the fishery staff had been round the rest of the fishery with a bucket raising over £100 on the condition that Fishery Bailiff Andy sacrificed his curls to the cause which duly happened .........

To round things off Faye got stuck in and drew the raffle, which went down a treat with plenty of banter flying around as some improbable prizes found new homes. Bill announced that the total raised on the day was £580 and with more to come as a result of a tackle auction, a very decent effort .

Dave T made a little speech of Thanks on behalf of Faye and her whole family, and very moving it was, I'm sure I saw a tear in the corner of a few rough, tough fishermen's eyes .
A team photo of the day to bring proceedings to a close  .......

......... before farewells were made, and we departed for homes far and wide.

A few Thank You's are in order at this point .......

Bill G who organised the whole thing and didn't even fish, spending the day walking the banks offering help and encouragement, as well as taking the pee on the day. Well Done fella, a great effort .

Matt, Kevin, Vince and Paul for helping Bill at various points during the day, and to Jean (Kevin's partner) for doing the business flogging the raffle tickets .

Guy Harrison, the owner of Monk Lakes and his staff at the fishery for all their help and support on the day .

Finally, all the members of Maggotdrowning.com and the anglers who attended on the day, as well as those who supported the day from afar, a very big Thank You as we couldn't do it without your support. The day was a real success, we may just have to do it again next year .

 May Madness at Mansfield's.

Well it was back to Mansfield's Lake again today, for another MD's Knock Up organised by Mick(The Chippy)Pearson with the help of "The Committee", and with the promise of loads of banter, a few fish and a ready supply of bread pudding and cakes in the offing, it looked like it would be fun .
Now it's a bit of a trot for me (65 miles) but a nice sunny morning and a surprisingly clear A2/M2 saw me arrive just after 8am to find to find a number of reprobates fine upstanding members of the community already in situ and devouring humongous "Breakfast Rolls" courtesy of Paul and his Burger Van . As always these Knock ups are more of a social event than a serious match and the banter was soon flowing and the side bets made, with Vince and I having our usual £1 coin on the outcome . Anyway with full bellies, and the chat being about how well it might fish as some decent weights had come out recently we assembled for the draw. Hand into the bag and I found peg 17 on the North bank would be my home for the match.

I have to say that I was a little disappointed as I fancied one of the pegs on the South bank as they all had beds of lilies or rushes offering features to fish to. However I had nobody in the pegs to my left and Ryan to my right for company. Opposite I had Mike, with Richard(DHLman) to his right and Vince to his left, so at least I would be able to keep a check on the destination of the £1.
With a overhanging tree I was a bit limited, but set up 3 top kits. The 1st was for around 7mtrs where the old stream bed was and I had around 6½ft of water and that consisted of a 4X16 Preston Bazzerla PB19 on 0·16 to 0·14 bottom with size 16 Drennan Match Carp hook, the 2nd for the left hand margin that shelved off into around 3ft of water towards the empty peg 16 was a smaller 4X12 Preston Bazzerla PB19 on 0·16 to 0·14 bottom with size 16 Drennan Match Carp hook while the third consisted of a Malman MTD2 dibber on 0·14 direct to a size 18 Drennan Maggot hook for tight into the right hand margin where there were a load of small roach apparently spawning in the weeds.
Bait for the day was a mix of pellets, punched meat, corn and hemp.

So at 10am Colin gave a blast on his whistle to signal the All-in and we were off . I potted a mix of pellet, hemp and a few grains of corn onto the 7mtr line and the left hand margin and just flicked some hemp into the right hand margin. Out with a pellet to 7mtrs, the rig settled and stayed there. An hour later and the float tip was still dry as a bone . Vince however had nicked an early Carp that looked around 3lbs on the waggler while he let his pole lines settle.......

and Mike had had a couple of small tench on paste tight to the lilies. Sport in general was very slow though with just the odd fish showing, and most of those appeared to be coming from the opposite end of the lake where the deeper water was. Ryan was getting the occasional tiny roach while Pete next to him was biteless like me.

Two hours in and Mike had added a small Carp, Richard had had a couple of small Roach and I still hadn't had a bite, it was starting to look grim . After another half an hour I decided to take a stroll and see what was happening elsewhere (and get some maggots off Mick ). Standing on the empty end peg (peg14) and looking down the lake it looked lovely....

and I could see a couple of tail patterns in the water, perhaps the fish had backed off into the quieter parts of the lake? Mike however wasn't happy with the lack of action , he's one of those anglers that likes to keep busy......

Vince was looking quietly confident as there were obviously fish in his swim (could this be the day he finally prized a Golden Nugget from my grasp?) Kev obviously had a shed load of fish in the reeds in his left hand margin, but could he solve the problem of interesting them in his bait? Mick had taken what he hoped was a first Crucian of many and kindly let me have some maggots and casters . Dean aka Marvin Waggler had accounted for a couple of Carp and Tony was determinedly trying to feed off the small roach. Meanwhile Mutley had extracted 3 Carp from the lilies next to his platform . Keith (Ryan's Dad) had snared a solitary Carp while Mick(Old Carper) was having a bit of a struggle (and dreaming of Manor House cake and Country Slices ).......

and at the same time having to watch Al opposite get amongst a few Carp, Indeed by the time that I got round to Al he was playing his 6th Carp of the day and already looking good to take the win ..........

Bill had had just 2 bites all morning, but at least had 2 Bream in the net..................

..........and Mick's brother Geoff was consentrating hard in an effort to get one over on his brother for once.............

.............. while Colin had a couple of Carp and missed an absolute sail away on the paste as I watched and Dave had just a solitary carp to show for his efforts.......

As I walked back I noticed Vince playing what looked to be another Carp, and as he netted it and popped it into the keepnet I'm sure I saw a little smile of satisfaction on his face .........

Settling back in at my peg, another look at 7mtrs produced nothing with a similar result in the left hand margin . Remembering the tail patterns I'd seen earlier I kept feeding the left hand margin heavily, in the hope that some fish might wander down late on and dropped a maggot on the dibber rig into the right hand margin in an effort to avoid the dreaded DNW. It did the job and in the next half hour I stuck around 25 tiny roach into the net that might have weighed a total of 8 ozs if I was lucky. Mike opposite had decided on a similar approach to keep himself busy but had been unfortunate enough to have hooked a couple of Carp that broke him in the lilies and when it happened to him for a third time around 2pm it was the final straw and he decided to pack up and head for home as he wasn't enjoying himself .

This however opened up an option for me, so I quickly got my feeder rod out of it's ready sleeve and changed the cage feeder that it was rigged with for a ½oz bomb with a hair rigged piece of punched meat. The overhanging branches were a bit of a problem but with a sideways flick I could drop it onto the edge of the pads opposite, now I just needed an inquisitive Carp to co-operate to be in with a chance of salvaging my £1 coin from Vince , and more importantly avoid the inevitable stick that would come my way on the forum should Vince take it off me in the assembled company . An hour later and I hadn't had a touch , Richard had managed to extract a couple from his patch of lilies and a few more fish had been caught further down the lake, most notably by Dean (Marvin Waggler), Geoff who was looking to put one over on his brothers Mick and Richard, while Colin had tempted a couple more from down his margin .

With 45 minutes to go it was looking as though Vince was going to mug "Mugger" when I noticed a tail pattern in the left hand margin that I'd kept feeding heavily. Having had no joy with punched meat on the feeder I tied up another hair rig to take 4 bits of corn hoping that a highly visible bait might do the trick and dropped it in and waited.
10 minutes later and the tip wrapped round and after a couple of anxious minutes a Common Carp of just over 3lbs was safely in the net . Could I get another? Dave walked up and as we chatted another fish topped, but the tip stayed still. I could hear Mick saying that the All-out was imminent when I remarked to Ryan that I could see a Ghostie hovering over where my bait was, but refusing to go down on the bait when the rod was almost wrenched out of my grasp , almost instantly the whistle blew for the All-out and I shouted "Fish On". From various parts of the lake I could hear shouts of disbelief or was it encouragement and I have to say that I was one very relieved angler when I slid the net under a Common Carp that looked to be just over 4lbs .

Looking across to the opposite bank Vince's face said it all, had he had his moment of triumph snatched away from him in the final seconds by "Mugger" ???????? As we packed away there was a lot of banter flowing back and forth. Ryan reckoned that I'd hooked the fish 8 seconds from the end of the match, now it would be all down to the scales.

As the scales made their way round Dean in his 1st ever match had taken the early lead with 26lbs 10ozs edging out Mutley by 4lbs, but I was taking my gear back to the car when Vince's fish were weighed and nobody would tell me what he had weighed as it came to my turn. As I tipped my fish into the net there were various mutterings and when the weight of 8lbs 10ozs was called Vince's face gave the game away , The Mugger had struck again and yet another Golden Nugget was coming my way .
Al was last to weigh and took the honours on the day putting a very creditable 44½lbs on the scales on what had proved to be a very hard day .

A quick mention should also be made of the fact that Mick (the chippy one ) is for the most part a confirmed rod & line man when it comes to his fishing, but Bill has taken Mick under his wing so to speak, in an effort to impart some of the dark arts of match fishing and the use of the pole. Well today the pupil beat his teacher and he fished the pole all match . Does this mean that Mick has graduated or will the teacher be putting him in his place next time out? We'll see .

Back to the car park and Mick (Old carper aka Mr Kipling ) had set the table for tea and cakes.......................

 while the Pearson brothers Mum had supplied Bread Pudding for all, as had Vince's Mum in Law . All in all a very civilised way of ending the match.
Vince somehow managed to raise a smile when he manfully posed for a photo as he handed over another Nugget ...............

While Mick had to part with a Golden Nugget to Geoff in the battle of the brothers ............

Al took home a nice tankard complete with a few beer tokens for 1st on the day .................

While Dean(Marvin Waggler) fishing what was his first ever match took more coin for his second place than he reckoned he'd spent on his rod .

A little bonus for me was that the assembled company reckoned that my last minute Carp, was best fish on the day, due to the amount of entertainment that it had provided for everyone at the end of the match, so £10 came my way .

Finally Vince presented The Chippy One with a little something to show our thanks for his efforts .............

evidently it's part of Mick's autobiography ......

Thanks to Mick and "The Committee" for organising the day, and to all that attended, making for a good day despite the fishing being a little harder than we would have liked .

Obviously you'll be able to read a report on the day here . 

Settling into my peg a few drops of rain started to fall, but thankfully soon stopped. I set up 3 top kits, the first was rigged up with a 4X16 Preston Bazzerla PB19 on 0·16 to 0·14 bottom with size 16 Drennan Match Carp hook for a line at 10mtrs where I had around 6ft of water, the gusting wind from left to right making it impractical to fish any longer. The second was a Malman 4x14 Snake 1 on 0·12 to an 0·10 bottom with a size 18 carbon maggot as an up in the water rig, should the Ide put in an appearance, while the third was a KC 4x12 Carpa Tricky on 0·16 to 0·14 bottom with size 16 Drennan Match Carp hook for the margins where I had 2-2½ft of water. I also set up the feeder rod as I'd been told that it was possible to drop on some bream from some pegs. Bait was red maggots, corn and pellet, with some Special G groundbait and hemp for feed.

Breakfast arrived in the shape of a bacon & egg baguette and I was just finishing this as the all in was called.
Chris over on peg 6 was into a fish straight away, with plenty of black hydro streaming out of the pole and after about 5 minutes had the culprit in the net, a Barbel of around 2½lbs ................

I fed some pellet into the margins and potted out a mix of hemp, pellet and maggot at 10 mtrs and followed it out with 2 maggots on the depth rig. The float settled and slid away and an Ide of around 6ozs got me off the mark, soon followed by a similar sized Chub. An hour later and I was still waiting for a third bite !!!!!!!!!!! Half an hour on the feeder was no better, but gave me the opportunity to take some shots of the wildlife ..........

................ and already word was spreading along the bank that it was rock hard with just a few bits for most, although Dave had already snared a couple of Carp from the flyer, it seemed that most were struggling to get to grips with the venue on the day.
Terry had appeared around 12·30 eating a burger, that being his only bite so far !!!!!! and I made the decision having only added a foul hooked Gudgeon and a couple of blade skimmers to stick 5 balls of groundbait onto the 10mtr line and have a stroll. Dave was happily plugging away and admitting to 5 carp..............

..........but for the rest it was grim , with nobody admitting to more than a few silvers, so I decided to take the burger option and get a bite to eat. All I can say is that it's probably best to stick to bacon, as hand on heart I couldn't tell what the burger was made of ???????? Thank God for onions and mustard, at least it gave it some flavor .

Back at my peg I could see Judy over on peg 4 occasionally popping fish in her net, was I going to get beaten by the club's lady angler twice in a row ????????????

Had the groundbait done the trick Well I wasn't pulling up any tree stumps, but I started to put together a few small skimmers and Ide which was an improvement and I just kept pinging a few maggots over the top in an effort to keep them coming . Frustratingly though they wouldn't come up in the water, I could only get a bite at depth, but at least I was putting something in the net on a reasonably regular basis. Terry had at last had a couple of bites, but he'd missed both of them .

With around an hour to go my bites had dried up again, so I put in another 3 balls of groundbait, then Al wandered round and we decided to go and see what some decent swims looked like . We found Dave admitting to having had a few more Carp including one around the 10lb mark, but apparently engaged in a tug of war with a patch of reeds, It's amazing just how far Red Hydro can stretch !!!!!!!!!!!

Judy was plugging away on peg 4, but was frustrated, feeling she probably hadn't got the best from it, while Jim on peg 3 was in a bit of trouble with a Carp snagged in roots and struggling to net it, finally it was in the net though, a Common of around 7lbs, a real bonus on the day .

Back at my peg, and the groundbait had brought a few back to the swim with a few better skimmers around the 8-12oz mark coming to the net. Looking up Chris had plenty of pole in the air again before landing what looked to be a bonus Carp, while Terry reported that he had finally hooked a couple of fish, only to have them drop off .

Thankfully at 4pm Dave sounded the All-out to put most of us out of our misery. The weigh-in told the tale of the day really, Jim on peg 3 weighed 14¾lbs including his Carp to take 2nd place on the day, While Chris was just 4ozs behind him with 14½lbs. Dave had walked it off the flyer however, weighing in 46¼lbs (not a bad belated birthday present ). I was pleasantly surprised to find that my net of bits weighed 13¼lbs for 4th on the day . Overall the day had been a real struggle though with more than a few suffering their own "Mugger Moments©", though as usual there had been more than a few laughs with plenty of banter flying around to make up for the disappointing fishing . The next Marsh AC match is at Colemans Cottage on May 16th, but next up for me is a match at Broad Oak in Kent with the lads from Maggotdrowning.com next Saturday, that you'll be able to read about here as usual.

Well with Maria having to work today I'd taken the opportunity to pop down to Monk Lakes to fish Bridges Lake. Vince popped down a couple of weeks ago and had a real Red Letter Day, and Bill G went on Bank Holiday Monday and also had a memorable day. Bill was going to join Vince and I today but unfortunately his wife was taken ill forcing him to cancel .
So after dropping Maria off at work I popped back home and loaded the tackle up and with the sun shining from a blue sky set off . As I passed Brands Hatch however, the sun vanished behind clouds and by the time I pulled into the fishery car park it was dull, grey and windy . As I payed for my day ticket in the shop I received a voice-mail from Vince telling me he was down by the lake and had already sorted two swims on the first island on the right hand side.
After carting the gear over Vince settled into the swim to the right, leaving me with the one facing out into the main body of the lake with the wind blowing from my right. It transpired that Vince's swim was the one that he'd had his good session on a couple of Tuesdays previously !!!! was I about to get 'Goulded' ?????

As we set up Keith(Disco)Driscoll and Steve(rookery54)Allen appeared, they were here to fish the Pads Army Charity Match and after a brief chat they set off for their draw. Vince was soon set up as he had all his rigs from his previous session on winders ............

I started plumbing up with a pole rig and was a little dismayed to find nothing more than a couple of feet of depth wherever I looked , so back into the holdall and out with the waggler rod that was already rigged up with a 4AAA peacock insert waggler finished of with a size 18 Drennan Match Carp hook at the business end, and a few casts around found a nice consistent 4ft. Bait wise I'd just brought 6mm pellets for feed and some 8mm's to band as hook bait with some corn for a change bait.

A couple of pouches of pellet were fired out to about 20 mtrs followed by the float which soon buried, the strike met with a pleasing resistance and I was soon putting the net under the culprit, a nice fit Barbel of 2½lbs .

A steady run of fish started to come to both Vince and I, with a few of the resident Chub mixed in with the Tench and Skimmers, well I call them Skimmers because they were silver coloured, but they were decent plump fish weighing between 2 and 3 pounds which are serious weight builders . I also managed my first Golden Tench of the year, always a nice colourful addition to the day .........

................ and it was soon followed by a second ..........

By 12 o'clock the wind had blown the clouds away and we had glorious sunshine , though the wind continued to make things difficult setting up an awkward tow on the lake, forcing me to lay about 6" of line on the deck and adjust the shotting to hold the float in place. I'd had a look on the feeder to see if that was a better option, but with it only producing a solitary Skimmer it was soon discarded.

Vince appeared to be having similar problems with the tow and with the wind full in his face started to struggle a bit as his catch rate seemed to start dropping off . My next fish was a little more weighty however as one of the lakes proper Bream put in an appearance, a nice slab that rolled the scales over to 5½lbs .........

One of the things about Monk Lakes is that with 7 lakes and a stretch of the River Beult it hosts a profusion of water fowl and throughout the day a family of Great Crested Grebe's were hovering around the edge of my swim .............

Vince had one of those "See You Later " moments as he hooked into something that set of like a torpedo and didn't stop, so strolled over for a chat to see how I was getting on, and just in time to do the honours with my camera as another proper bream hit the net, a shade larger than the previous one at around 6lbs ........

Which was soon followed by an immaculate Common Carp of around 6lbs ...............

Meanwhile I had a visit from "Mother Mallard" and her brood which curtailed my fishing for a little while as I didn't want to risk striking and launching one of the ducklings skywards ..........

A little while later Vince received a phonecall from his Brother meaning he had to leave as he'd brought round a floor sander for him to use, not without him getting one final fish though, but try as he might it was not to be ......

........... as his float steadfastly refused to go under ....................

My next Bream proved to be my best of the day weighing 6½lbs , to give you some idea of the size, the net in the photo is a 30" pan net, and the fish is just about as long as the net is wide ........................

Vince bade me farewell at 3·15 pm, while I fished on for another hour, with another 6 proper un's mixed in with a few Tench and Chub, to finish the session with 57 fish that must have easily gone 100lbs+, a really nice days fishing by any standards .

As I packed away Keith and Steve reappeared for a chat having finished their match. I subsequently heard that poor Keith had managed to break his no 6 section of his pole again when the wind blew it while packing up, so no wonder he didn't mention it at the time !!!!!!

So that was it for another day, Thanks to Vince for his company on the day . Next Up it's the Marsh AC match at Pea Lane (Thanks to Steve Allen for some info on the venue ) next Saturday, and as usual a report will be forthcoming here .

"Easter Friday Hawkhurst Fish Farm. I've just been up there and the bailiff tells me it's free on this day, with everyone being off anyone fancy a knock up?" That's the post that Paul(paulvis69)Slater put up on the Maggotdrowning forum which has led to 19 of us travelling down to Kent today.

Loading up the car it appeared to be pleasantly mild, which considering the previous weeks weather forecasts was a bonus as they had been promising rain. A smooth trip down saw me pulling into the fishery just after 8am to find almost everyone already there and eager for the draw.(Unfortunately Kevin had been called into work at 4am forcing him to miss it ) With the on-site café not due to open till 9·15am Paul soon had the draw underway so that we could get set up and then have breakfast before the start of the match at 10·30am.
Dipping my hand into the bag peg 1 was my reward . Some regard it as a flyer as it's an end peg in a corner, but I'm not so sure as everyone seems to congregate round it during and prior to the draw which must disturb the fish there and in all the matches I've fished there it's never framed yet alone produced the winner.

Settling in I had Vince for company on peg 2, so the battle for our customary £1 coin was going to be up close and personal today , while opposite on peg 20 was Terry(Wily Coyote)Goff coming out of hibernation for his 1st outing of the year. Vince must have thought that I wasn't all that confident because he took the following picture thinking that I was praying to the fishing gods, however he had only caught me pumping some expander pellets .......

My set up was pretty simple today, just 3 top kits, 2 rigged with 4X12 Malman Champers on 0·16 to 0·14 bottoms with size 16 Drennan Match Carp hooks, one for 4mtrs straight out in front where I had around 4ft of water and the other for up against the boards to my left where there was around 2½ft, while the third was a Malman MTD2 dibber on 0·16 direct to a size 16 Drennan Match Carp hook for the margins where I had around 18" and would also double up as an up in the water rig. Bait for the day was simply 6 & 8mm fishery pellet (Skrettings) that would be banded and some 6mm GOT expanders as a change bait, with feed taken care of by more 6mm fishery pellet.

With the kit all set up most of us made for the café and and a Full English. 2 sausage, 2 bacon, 2 eggs, Mushrooms, beans/tomatoes, fried slice + toast & marmalade and tea or coffee for £5 setting everyone up for the five hours ahead . So with everyone full it was back to our pegs................

.................... and at 10·30am Paul called the All-in. A large pot of pellet was dumped at 4mtrs and another spread along the boards to my left while I fed some more by hand down the left hand margin into the corner where there was a build up of scum. Out with the 4mtr rig and a banded 6mm pellet produced a couple of lightning fast bites without connection which I'm sure were Roach just snatching at the pellet, while Vince was soon into his 1st fish of the day and putting a Carp safely into his net . A more positive bite soon saw some Black Hydro coming from my top kit and a nice little Common of around 1½lbs get me off and running. After around an hour I had around 10 fish, no great shakes but at least I was getting fish regularly unlike Terry opposite who appeared to have got off to a bit of a slow start and having a bit of a struggle ................

Just after the half way mark I was starting to struggle on the 4mtr line so after dumping another large pot of pellet in I had a look over to the boards on my left, taking 4 Carp in 4 put in's before the Roach turned up, a look to the corner proved fruitless, so I decided to stretch my legs and see how the others were doing. It was soon obvious that the middle pegs were the place to be with Paul (nomorelongwalks) who always seems to do well here at Hawkhurst catching steadily, Tony was into a fish.....................

.........as was Dave..................

................. though as usual they were both cagey as to just how well they were both doing . Clive who had made the trip up for the day as he always enjoys it here had settled on a margin attack..............

......... as had the match organiser, Paul (paulvis69) over on the other bank on peg 13....................

Back to my peg and onto the 4mtr line and the fish were ready for it once more, though I was still getting some of those lightning fast bites that I couldn't connect with . By keeping the pellet going in I was keeping fish going into the net, even taking a few shallow, but I was having to wait to long between fish on the shallow rig so reverted back to the deck to keep my catch rate ticking over. Vince however was starting to struggle a bit having to wait a bit to long between fish to keep pace with me ................

With around an hour to go I had 50 fish in my nets but the sky had darkened and it was obvious that we would be finishing the match in the rain . Terry on peg 20 had started to put a run of fish together playing catch up after his poor start, and looking a bit further across I could see that Nick(pastie)Allen on peg 16 and Keith(Disco)Driscoll on peg 15 were having a good old battle with both anglers taking fish regularly.............

With the arrival of the rain however my bites dried up while Jay to Vince's right on peg 3 seemed to have a great last hour ........................

I really struggled and only managed to put another 2 fish in the net in the last hour, leaving me with 52 fish when Paul called the All-out at 3·30pm. I was first to weigh in and 86½lbs was my reward for the day, not good enough for the frame but more than enough against Vince's 32½lbs to see yet another shiny £1 coming my way . Paul on peg 7 took the win on the day with 125lbs (Told you he likes it at Hawkhurst ) while Keith had edged Nick out to third with 112lbs to 101lbs in their peg to peg battle.

So that was it for another day, A Nicely organised match by Paul(paulvis69), Thanks fella .  and Paul(nomorelongwalks) kindly treated us to coffee's in the café from his winnings before we bade our farewells and set off for home. Next up for me is a Club match at Pea Lane in Essex in 2 weeks time, a new venue to me. How will it go?????????? not got a clue, but all will be revealed in the fullness of time .

Marsh AC club match.

Well today saw the 1st Marsh AC match of the year taking place at Monk Lakes on Match Lake 2 . These matches are always light hearted affairs and there's bound to be a bit of banter flowing throughout the day, and hopefully a few fish to be had .

Loading up the car for the drive down it was dull grey and drizzling and by the time I arrived around 8am nothing had really changed. A cup of coffee and a bacon sarnie took care of breakfast . 15 club members and a couple of guests lined up for the draw One of those being Dave Talbot, who had received a new pole as a result of his daughter Faye's appeal on the Maggotdrowning.com forum at Christmas. (You can read the relevent thread HERE ). Bill G had come along too, but he was going to spend the day helping Dave get to grips with the pole has he hadn't used one previously .

Into the bucket and peg 51 stuck to my hand. Colin and Dave drew last and ended up with the two flyer's 66 and 45 . Settling into my peg, despite having a free peg to my left with Judy next up on peg 53 and what turned out to be a free peg to my right as Bill G had drawn it (but would spend the match coaching Dave Talbot) I can't say I was delighted with it, the wind was blowing straight into it and I would have to watch those on the opposite bank fishing with the wind off their backs for the whole match . Also it's a peg that doesn't get fished a lot during the week, pegs 45, 46 and 47 seeing a lot of action on a regular basis due to the resident Barbel.

Setting up I selected 2 top kits with Black Hydro, these were rigged with a 4X16 Preston Bazzerla PB19 on 0·16 to 0·14 bottom with size 16 Drennan Match Carp hook for a 10mtr line where I had around 6ft of water and a KC 4x12 Carpa Tricky on 0·16 to 0·14 bottom with size 16 Drennan Match Carp hook for a closer margin line where I had 2-2½ft of depth. I also set up my Shakespeare Mach 3 Micro - 11' Waggler which was rigged with a Premier 4AAA insert waggler. Bait wise, Got 6mm expander pellet along with 6 and 8mm hard pellet along with corn and meat would hopefully provide something appetising for the fish while 6mm pellet and some Special G groundbait took care of the feed.

10am and Dave blew the All-in. I fed 3 balls of ground bait on the 10mtr line and some pellet into both margins.
Dave Talbot on peg 49 had been under instructions from Daughter Faye to catch a Barbel, and got off to the perfect start as the 1st fish on his new pole proved to be a Barbel (Mission Accomplished ).

After about 5 minutes I had my first bite on the 10mtr line and with what felt like a decent fish taking elastic, was more than a little put out when the hook pinged free as i was getting ready to net it .
From that point on my day went downhill rapidly. Judy was sorting out a few of the lakes resident Ide and Dave T was taking some decent fish on a regular basis, much to Bill G's delight , was it Bill's coaching or was he sitting on a shed full? It didn't matter really because I couldn't buy a bite .

Back in mid-February Paul(paulvis69)Slater put the following post up on the Maggotdrowning forum "I'm trying to arrange a match on Saturday 28th March at Luck's Lane Paddock Wood."

Which is how despite some misgivings due to the weather forecast and previous experience of the venue in the winter months, I found myself loading up the car and heading down there today to give it a go . Keith (Disco) Driscoll had remarked that he would be stopping at the Oakdene Café, and I met him and Greg Andrews there at around 7·15am for breakfast before we made our way down to the fishery. As soon as I got out of the car in the fishery car park it was obvious just how cold and windy it was , and this was reinforced when I had a walk round for a look at the pegs. I hadn't fished there since 2004 and thankfully the platforms have been improved since then. I fancied either peg 11 or 12 as they are either side of the only tree that overhangs the water.

Chatting to a few of the lads prior to the draw, hopes were high as some good weights had come out recently. Paul called the draw and after handing over my money I dipped my hand in and was rewarded with peg 12 with Mick for company next door on peg 13.

Settling in it was obvious that the tree wasn't going to be providing any shelter so decided to keep things relatively simple setting up just a couple of top kits. Both of these were rigged with KC 4x14 Carpa 2's on 0·16 to 0·14 bottoms with size 16 Drennan Match Carp hooks. The 1st to fish on the deck at around 8mtrs where I had around 3½ft and a distance I felt would be comfortable to fish at given the wind, while the second was set at around 2½ ft to fish to the edge of overhanging tree branches. Bait wise it was pellet all the way with hard 6mm's for feed and GOT 6mm expanders for hookers along with some hard 8mm's to fish banded as a change bait.

It was soon obvious that everyone had set up pretty quickly as nearly everyone was walking around and having a chat with half an hour to go, either that or they were just trying to keep warm .

Anyway Paul called the All-in early giving us an extra 15 minutes. I potted out a large pot of 6mm pellet at 8 mtrs (the wind was to strong to throw them) and fed a big handfull by the tree branches. 1st put in at 8 mtrs and after a couple of lift and drops of the rig, the float dipped and I connected with a small Carp of around 8ozs that was swiftly netted to get me off the mark . Really it was a case of steady away from there. The bites were pretty shy though meaning I had to dot the tip as far down as the conditions allowed and hit every dip. It didn't help matters that the rain soon arrived to heap more misery on us and the wind seemed to keep changing direction . After around 1½hrs I had 30 fish in the net but the bites started to dry up on the 8mtr line so I had a 1st look down by the tree, and there were fish there . Colin arrived to see how I was getting on, he'd had half a dozen Carp on paste pretty quickly at the start................

........... but his bites had dried up and he was starting to feel the cold and was going back to the car park to get some warmer kit and I joined him as I'd left my fleece in the car.

Just up from Colin, was Keith who was catching steadily.............

......... but was going to endure yet more bad luck with his pole, the wind blowing it off the roller and breaking his no 6 section .

Mike (not a lover of having to scratch around for a few bites) was obviously not enjoying himself with very little in the way of fish coming his way.........

......... and had also suffered the bad luck to have his no6 section break on the strike which meant that with no spare section he was having to fish short ,  and would soon decide to call it quits and depart to the comfort of a warm fire and a glass of wine at home.

The fish that I was getting by the tree were a bit bigger than those from the open water swim, still silly little bites and I had to keep the feed going in to keep those coming and when I received a phone call from Dave the Fish at around 12·30pm I'd just netted my 52nd fish. The amount I'd had to feed to keep the bites coming had caught me out though and I quickly had to pop back to the car once more to get some more pellets. While I knew Keith, Gary and a couple of others were catching steadily I was feeling pretty good about framing as I was sure that I was ahead of those anglers that I could see.

Around 1·30 pm the rain stopped and sun finally appeared , and around 2pm Matt put in an appearance and you couldn't miss him, red Milo jacket and boots topped off with a red baseball cap and a pair of sunglasses !!!!!!!!
A very rare site as you seldom see Matt until the average temperature reaches 60°F . Living close by though, he'd ventured down to see how we were getting on and take a few photos.......

.......... but with dark grey sky's threatening again he bade us farewell and departed.

Well the rain and wind returned, this time with added hail as a bonus . My bites had slowed but I was still getting the odd better fish from down by the overhanging branches........

......... with a couple of 5lb'ers being the last of my 92 fish . Thankfully the sun came out oncemore and the wind dropped for the final 15 minutes of the match and allowed us to at least pack up and weigh in in the dry.

Greg set the early pace with a hard earned 57lbs but was soon overtaken by Keith putting 83lbs on the scales, including a 10lber and at that point I though that bonus fish might make the difference. However my 2 nets weighed a total of 88lbs to give me the win on the day and a nice few beer tokens . Thanks to Paul for organising the match and the rest of the lads for their company, it turned out to be quite enjoyable for me on the day .

As an aside, today was the 1st outing for my new PROTAK gear and I have to say that it coped superbly with everything that the elements threw at it keeping me warm and dry all day. Doubtless it will get another good test next Saturday when I'm at Monk Lakes for the 1st Marsh AC club match of the year. I'll keep you posted .

Maggotdrowning.com Knock Up.

 

Well it was back to the scene of the MD's Southern Fur & Feather match today for yet another Knock up organised by Mark(Moleman)Hathaway and Trevor(MT Net)Little through the forum. As I loaded the car up for the drive down it appeared that the weather gods were smiling on us for once with the promise of some decent weather for a change, and hopefully a good few fish would find their way into everyones nets today . Pulling into the fishery car park around 8am a few of the lads were already there and the food hut was soon doing a brisk trade in breakfast rolls and cups of tea and coffee.

By 9am it was time for the draw and it was literally a draw for pegs as Moleman had a bag of numbered cloths pegs . I came out with peg 15 on the day, which was the same peg as I had for the Fur & Feather match previously. Having struggled to get set up comfortably last time, I had my platform with me this time and set it up so that i could use it as a seat, I'd been told by Trevor, who knows the water like the back of his hand that the line to fish was towards a bush on the opposite bank, so that was my plan of attack, I had Bill for company to my right today and Roger(Up Yah)Harris to my left, on the other side of the bridge. The rigs I set up consisted of Malman 4x14 Snake 1's on 0·12 to an 0·10 bottom with a size 18 hook, one for the margin swim to my right by some weeds where I had a couple of feet of depth. The others were for out into open water at 7mtrs and 10mtrs where I had around 3ft. Bait was maggots and various pellets with some corn for a change bait and some groundbait as well.

While we set up there was a bit of commotion on the opposite bank. Poor Keith(Disco)Driscoll had got his pole out of his holdall, only to watch the whole lot slide down the bank and into the lake !!!!!!!!! Of course he had to go in for it and thankfully he managed to get the whole lot back. Of course we were all full of sympathy for his plight (Thanks to Vince for capturing it on film )

So 10·30am and the All-in and I fed some maggots and pellets into the margin swim and cupped 5 balls of groundbait in at 10mtrs. I followed out with the rig baited with double maggot. The float settled and just slid away and the culprit, a small skimmer of 2-3 ozs was soon in the net . Bill was in straight away too, but his skimmer was around 1lb !!!! I was soon into a run of skimmers, but they were all the same sort of stamp (2-3ozs) despite switching to 3 maggots on the hook as suggested by Bill, while he continued to bag up with decent 1lb+ examples, and the only reason appeared to be that Bill had a good 4½ft of depth at a comfortable 5mtrs.

Anyway head down and keep going, at least I was catching regularly, even if Bill was battering me , Indeed after a couple of hours I reckoned that I had around 10-12lbs while Bill must have had 40lbs+ and was going to need a second net, Trev meanwhile on the peg to Bill's right was steadily putting a decent run of fish together alternating between the pole and waggler. Bill was having one of those days though, and soon had loads of Grey Hydro streaming out of his top kit, the culprit being a decent Carp, putting me even further behind.........

Having already mentally waved farewell to the £1 I'd had with Bill , I was relying on my customary £1 with Vince to offset it , but my view of Vince was obscured by the island so I just got on with it. The bites kept coming but despite trying various things I just couldn't up the size of fish I was getting . Very occasionally I would get a better skimmer, but they were always followed by more of their smaller brethren. I seemed to be keeping up with Roger to my left, but even his fish appeared to be of a slightly larger stamp .

Around 2pm Terry(Wily Coyote)Goff put in an appearance, he couldn't fish today, but being local had popped down to see how things were going just as my bites started to tail off , but I don't think it was down to Terry as it didn't seem to matter where you looked as sport seemed to have slowed down for everyone, even Bill .

Vince came round just after 2·30 pm to ask Terry to weigh his fish as he had to get away early as his son was in his first amateur drama production of "The Wind in the Willows", and of course like any proud parent he wanted to be there . His fish weighed 18lbs 13ozs and he left the £1 with Terry for safe keeping .

With the All-out about to be called Keith's day unfortunately went from bad to worse . Getting off his box he slipped and the sound of splintering carbon was heard by all across the lake, resulting in a catalogue of carnage (no7 section broken in two, no4 section in 4 pieces and a top 2 pulla kit snapped )
So with the match ending on that unhappy note it was time for the weigh-in. Moleman's 35lbs 10ozs set the early pace till he was edged out of the frame by Omega Mike's 37lbs 9ozs from the road bank. Trevor put a fine 50lbs 6ozs on the scales, but it was Bill who took a fine win on the day with 74lbs 2ozs .
My weight of 32lbs 4ozs was only good enough for seventh place on the day, but at least meant that another £1 from Vince had come my way .
All in all a good day in good company as always seems to be the case when the MD's get together. Here's to the next one .

Maggotdrowning.com Knock Up.

 

It was a small Knock-up amongst a few members of the Maggotdrowning.com forum down at Buxted Oast today, but it didn't get off to the best of starts for me, as I went down to load the car and found that some scrote had tried to break into the car overnight . However I managed to fix the damage pretty quickly and was soon loaded up and on my way. Overcast but nice and mild, it promised to be a decent day and I even had time to stop off in East Grinstead for a spot of breakfast, arriving at the fishery car park around 8·45am .
The MD's knock-ups are always fun and today promised to be no different, Bill had already pegged out, so it was monies paid and into the draw bag, with peg 4 being my home for the match.

Settling in I had Trevor for company on peg 3 with Pete to his right on peg 2, while peg 5 to my left wasn't drawn. Bill had recommended fishing a comfortable 8-10 mtrs straight out where there was about 2½-3 ft and not to ignore the margins so that was the basic approach. I just set up two top kits and both of these were rigged with Malman 4x12 Snake 1's on 0·14 to an 0·12 bottom with a size 18 Drennan Match Carp hook and I also set up the pellet waggler rod as I could see a few Carp already cruising around the top. Bait for the day was Corn, GOT 6mm expanders and 6mm hard pellet, No maggots though as these tend to pull the Roach.

10am and Ryan called the All-in. I shipped out half a pot of mixed pellet and corn to 10mtrs and fed some pellet by hand into the margins and had a quick cast with the pellet waggler to see if I could "mug" and early fish , but with no interest shown that was quickly discarded in favour of the pole. Shipping out a 6mm expander to 10 mtrs the float had hardly settled when it disappeared down the hole and a nice Common of around 3lbs was soon safely in the net , next put in and another smaller fish around 1½lbs joined its friend, Happy days . Trevor had had a couple of quick Carp too, as had Pete .

Dave tucked away in the corner on peg 6 had got off to the best start however, fishing tight into the corner under the willow, taking 5 Carp and a Frog !!!!!!!!!!!! You just know that Dave the Fish's nickname will become Dave Le Frog after that little episode .

After that initial burst however sport seemed to grind to a halt for most , leaving people scratching their heads as to why they couldn't get amongst the fish, and Trev being bored looking at a stationary float reverted to a top 2 and maggot to get some action with the roach, soon lining them up and regretting the fact that he hadn't packed a whip today . Around 12·30 I re-fed my main line and another to my left and went for a stroll round.
Dave's sport has slowed but fish were moving round the tree, while Bill on peg 7 by the outfall just had a solitary Carp, but frustratingly, fish that he could see taking pellet in front of him .
Colin tucked away in fancied peg 8 was another with just a solitary carp to show for his efforts, but was now being plagued by small Roach attacking whatever he put on his hook .

Vince meanwhile was fishing down his right hand margin on peg 9 and had taken a couple of Carp despite it being "Snag Central" and costing him a few hooks, and he managed to slide a third Carp into the net as I watched . Would he be taking a £1 coin from me today  ?

Back to my peg and out to 10mtrs and the float shot strait under as I laid it in !!!! A foul hooker that tore around a bit, but was soon safely in the net, with the hook in a pectoral fin and a good 5lbs added to my weight . Pete dropped by for a chat as I shipped out to my left hand line for the 1st time, and an instant bite resulted in Carp no 4 making it's way to join the others in the net.

Trev was getting into a decent rhythm and building a weight of silvers when the inevitable happened and he hooked a Carp, and he was connected to it just long enough for it to trash his swim before it shed the hook, leaving him to have to build it up again .

Tony strolled round and informed me that both he and Paul had a couple of Carp each, while Mick on peg 1 breathed a sigh of relief as he finally managed to snare a Carp , having endured a frustrating time watching them cruise round in front of him, leaving just Ryan staring at a dry float tip as it steadfastly refused to go under .

With a couple of hours to go Dave started to catch regularly, having fed a few floaters under the tree, and was looking uncatchable, leading Bill on the next peg to change rigs to just a couple of feet of line and a hook and fish long to try and tempt the fish that were still cruising in front of him, and it soon started to produce for him.
With nothing showing on the top within pole range in my swim I stuck it out alternating between my 2 long lines, as nothing apart from Roach could be tempted from the margins, and I managed another 5 Carp before Ryan called the All-out at 4pm .

The Weigh-in told the story, Dave Le Frog had won comfortably, taking 27 Carp in total for 52¼lbs and a very comfortable win . Bill had a good last hour weighing a level 27lbs to bump my 25lbs 6ozs down to third.
Trevor put a very creditable 21lbs 3ozs on the scales for 5th and may well have taken second place if he'd remembered to pack his whip. Of course poor Vince had to hand over another £1 coin to yours truly, so it seems normal service has been resumed in 2009 .

My next planned outing is in a couple of weeks time, to Wylands for a "Silvers" match on House Lake which should be fun providing we don't get a repeat of the weather we had on our last visit there, though if we do at least the Tea Hut will do a roaring trade .